PUBLIC HOUSE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Public house

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/pˈəblɪk haʊs/ Listen

adjective

Public adj.

1.

Of or pertaining to the people; belonging to the people; relating to, or affecting, a nation, state, or community; opposed to private; as, the public treasury. "To the public good Private respects must yield." "He (Alexander Hamilton) touched the dead corpse of the public credit, and it sprung upon its feet."

2.

Open to the knowledge or view of all; general; common; notorious; as, public report; public scandal. "Joseph,... not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily."

3.

Open to common or general use; as, a public road; a public house. "The public street."

public act or public statute (Law), an act or statute affecting matters of public concern. Of such statutes the courts take judicial notice.

Public credit. See under Credit.

Public funds. See Fund, 3.

Public house, an inn, or house of entertainment.

Public law.

(a)

See International law, under International.

(b)

A public act or statute.

Public nuisance. (Law) See under Nuisance.

Public orator. (Eng. Universities) See Orator, 3.

Public stores, military and naval stores, equipments, etc.

Public works, all fixed works built by civil engineers for public use, as railways, docks, canals, etc.; but strictly, military and civil engineering works constructed at the public cost.

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Etymology of 'Public house'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Public house" Quotes from Famous Books

... habits, a subject on which almost every man living can talk more or less. I thought you'd have taken that opportunity of telling the story about the horse which always stopped at the door of a certain public house, even after the temperance reformer had bought him. I'm sure you'd have liked to tell ...

— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham

... and soon found the street where she had taken his lodging. At the corner of it was, as is too usual in London streets, a public house, about which more than the usual number of disreputable idlers were hanging. There were also one or two policemen, who were ordering the little crowd to give way to a group of ...

— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)

... sooty chimney flues; so dirty that he knew not what cleanliness meant; so ignorant that he "never had heard of God, or of Christ, except in words which you never have heard," and his idea of happiness was to "sit in a public house with a quart of beer and a long pipe," to play cards for silver money, to "keep a white bull dog with one gray ear, and carry her puppies in his pocket just like a man," to have apprentices and to bully them, to knock them about and make them carry soot sacks while ...

— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester

... of a cheerless morning the trio started off, and by continual tramping, and an occasional lift from a carter reached a public house where they lingered for some hours, and then went on again until the next night. They turned into no house at Shepperton, as the weary boy had expected; but still kept walking on, in mud and darkness, until they came in ...

— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... is on top of a sand hill. Yet they have in Santa Fe all the parts and parcels of a regal city and a Bishopric. The Bishop has a palace also; the only two-storied shingle-roofed house in the place. There is one public house set apart for eating, drinking and gambling; for be it known that gambling is here authorized by law. Hence it is as respectable to keep a gambling house, as it is to sell rum in New Jersey; it is a lawful business, and being lawful, and consequently respectable and a man's right, why should ...

— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

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